Ahhhhhhhh!

So Dev got a text message from our tenants yesterday saying they had found a house and didn't need to rent our place anymore. What a pain in the a#&!!!!! There wasn't a whole lot of interest, but there certainly was some. We got confirmation from the young couple and even got a security deposit to hold the place for them. I guess we'll be keeping that, but we did lose out on some valuable time if we are going to be able to rent it April 1st.
The money would be nice - that much I know - but there would also be some drawbacks to sharing walls again. I don't totally feel bad because we hadn't even had one rent cheque yet, but we were counting on it coming in on April 1st.
I don't know what we'll do yet, but I am not too broken up about this. The guy is a cop, and I am generally kind of intimidated by the police. So we won't have to worry about that.
But alas, we're back at square one. Gives me a little more time to lay some new tile in the back entrance.......... that will be another story of it's own I am sure.

There's a first time for everything

If ever there is a time for a post, this is it.
My dad gave me a huge external drive for my computers several months ago and we have slowly been hauling pictures and music and things to the drive in order to keep the computers running as smoothly as possible.
Whenever anyone else gets onto one of the computers here they can't believe how slowly they run. So I figured this might help. It also is nice that Devyn likes to organize and name things. So some of the works was pretty easy for me, but that is beside the point! Anyway, once I got five years worth of pictures and music off of this laptop, I went to type something and the keyboard would not work. Oh oh! This could be a problem..... what did I uninstall that disabled the damn thing?
So I did what anyone else would do and turned off the machine and promptly forgot about the problem.
Fast forward a month-ish and I just turned the sucker on this evening and got snooping around the maintenance and performance sections of Windows. Low and behold I have returned the keyboard to a functional state and here I sit.
I was ready to hunker down for the evening and wait for this thing to tell me what to do. What a pleasant surprise! I even had time to look at motor homes and quads and other things I'd love to waste a bunch of money on!
Now I better lumber off to bed. Happily.

Update

Woah, I have some things to fill in, but not a single picture to go with it.
First, we got renters for the basement. So we'll have a nice young couple living under the stairs paying a hunk of my mortgage starting at the end of the month. That should help the bottom line somewhat. Even if we aren't crazy about having tenants. We thought we'd better give it a chance though. So here we go!
On another note, I joined the iPhone army last week. My contract was set to expire and I phoned and tried to play some hard ball with the Telus reps. To make a long story short, I ended up with the same cheap plan I got in Toronto, but I had to add some data plan for $25 in order for the phone to work. So they are happy to have another customer locked up for another three years and they soaked me for more $$$. Hmmmmmmmmmm. The phone is very cool though.
The only trouble was that the new phone was my only camera for our fishing trip and I had lots of big plans to text pictures of my monster catch and that just didn't happen.
Me and my pops went up to Lawrence Lake on the weekend to fish with a couple of friends. Max and Tom were already up there. So on Saturday morning after Dink's tux fitting (a story of it's own) we hit the road to Athabasca area and fished Saturday afternoon and Sunday. What a terrific time with some really cool people. I have pics on the new phone, but don't want to start trying to take photos off the phone. I know it's easy, but I am not going there right now. I should get to that just to show a few shots of the cabin. What a place! Maybe I'll get a few pics from my dad if he has any.
And only one final little note is that I went to Kevin's Tux fitting on Saturday morning. I am going to be a groomsman at the September wedding. So we are 6 months early???? I shouldn't be surprised though. The guy has been engaged for a couple of years and his engagement party was easily a year ago! I think the future Mrs. Meghan Savage is a bit of a planner......... Otherwise, everything went just fine and the wedding will be lots of fun.

Will we have a tenant?

So there's not too much to report. I've been thinking of various reasons to get on here and write a post, but hadn't thought of anything interesting. But I suppose that's a matter of opinion.
When we bought the house we thought there was a good opportunity to make a bit of extra cash by renting out the basement suite. Nothing came of it for quite a few months mainly on laziness, but also a bit of reluctance. Not sure if we wanted to share our walls again. But we've decided to give it a shot, and a few people over to look at the suite.
I think the fact that we advertised it as a basement suite might scare some people away, but it's actually quite a nice place. Anyway, a lady came by first, and she was "middle-aged". Not too crazy about the idea of having an older lady down there. We can imagine any number of situations with a high-maintenance tenant.
The next day a young couple came by to look and they seem quite interested. I am hoping we hear back from them.
It would be nice to have somebody pay half of my mortgage. This young couple would be just fine with me.
We put an ad in the local rag and got some interest, but we forgot to include the price, forgot to say no pets and forgot to mention no smoking. It's been a learning process. I must thank Devyn for taking care of all the "stuff". Sarah wouldn't be too surprised by this. Some things never change with me I guess. Like the time I got Sarah to go buy me a Playboy magazine when we were kids at a garage sale because I was too shy. hahahahah.
Anyway, quite an experience so far. I'll keep you posted.

2010

Two full months have passed me by since my last post. My legion of faithful followers must be diminishing....... can't say I blame you!
Anyway, lots has been happening these days. Work had been tremendous. Last week I wore only a sweater. Can you imagine a week in January as a mailman, and I wasn't even wearing a jacket. My grandma always says she worries about me working outside in the harsh Edmonton winters, but it's totally fine. And I'll remember this week in the middle of July too.
The house is great, we're having lots of fun making picture frames and hanging some of our Africa photos and sort of just making it feel like home.
I had been somewhat slow in getting these pictures up, and we wanted to make this frame to wrap some fabric we bought in Africa around. The idea came up when we first moved in, and Devyn decided that it was going to get done last weekend at any expense. So she got Jason over here to do the job. I must say that I felt my manly-ness was being called into question, but Jason's an engineer, and I knew it wouldn't be such a big job.
We fired up the air compressor, and Jason brought his nailer, and we had picked up some 1" x 1" cedar for the frame. Within an hour this was hanging on the wall. Not a bad effort if I don't mind saying.
The top picture is my attempt at providing some idea of where we are talking in the house. You'd sort of be standing in the front entrance area looking in for the first picture, and standing in the edge of the living room in the second.
On Tuesday afternoon the Olympic torch came rolling through St. Albert. I was done work early enough to join Dev and her parents down there. It was kind of cool despite the fact that I scoff when I see it come on the CTV news every night. Perhaps I made the national news that day.

The Perfect Game

This was the sky out back the other evening. Of course I use the term, "evening" rather loosely. I would venture to guess that was at 430 in the afternoon. It's that time of year in Edmonton where we don't get too much afternoon sun.
But the moon was out loud and clear.

And this is some relatively old news, but it was amazing none-the-less. Dev rolled a perfect game of Wii bowling with me, Jason and Trevor.

We've had the Wii for quite a while and this was the first time anyone hit a perfect game. So Dev can rest knowing that the top score will never be topped. We went literally wild shouting and cheering and "high-five"-ing. It was something to behold. Congrats.

Pileated Woodpecker

Here's a visitor we had to the yard this morning! Dad tells me it's a Pileated Woodpecker. Roughly 40-48 cms in size. It was amazing.
Not sure if the pics will show up too clearly, but they look good when enlarged. I bet I was a bout four feet away at one point.

The move

Here's the entire gang on our housewarming/Halloween party. Looks like a zoo, but it was really only this crowd for a little while. Dressing up was obviously a bigger thing for some of us.
Here are Mike and Mike. If you haven't seen the Saturday night live skit where Justin Timberlake does this Dick-in-a-box video that is terribly funny. That's what Mr. Rennick and Mr. Barry are doing.
This is a little better shot so you can see what's happening. Too funny. They out some effort into this get-up.
Here's little Kai. Al and Brandy's baby. I put this up mostly because Sarah always has a million babies on her blog.... but he's cool.

Kev had us all in stitches when he called the Wendy's help-line to see how best to clean up a pop spill on the floor in the garage. I do have to admit I was responsible so I couldn't yell at anyone. We didn't really know that this was a gangster/flapper type party with all of Sheck's family etc. Yipes.
We hit the dollar store and bought moustaches for that party and for actual Halloween.
Marc and Alaina came by on the 23rd too. Nowhere to sit yet as you can see. But it was cool to have my dad around that afternoon working with Dev. Then the boys came by, and Alaina. Then Uncle Wal even made it for a beer in the garage on the very first night we had the house.
I think this was on the 23rd also. We get right down to it. Big job, but it's been a lot of fun to be honest.
This would be when Trevor got his big bread truck on Saturday the 24th and dad had burger's ready for us when we were done. Not a moment too soon, but they were awesome.
There's Bobby Harris and his boy. Hadn't had the pleasure of meeting Leyland. I hope that's how you spell it. He was such a cute little guy. This was just a few minutes after he licked the tires on the big truck.
And there she is in all her glory. That was so nice of Trev to help us with that. It wouldn't have happened as smoothly as it did if I didn't have these friends to help with all the stuff. So things have started to settle down and I will try to keep things a little more up-to-date

Oops

Well this is pathetic really! Not a single post since August.

But what's the point of beating myself up over it? I know those of you who have gone through the process of buying a house will have some sympathy for me. There is so much to do. I bet I've used ten times the daytime minutes my phone plan allows. Calls to the lawyer, the mortgage lady, the bank, the realtor, the cable company, utilities ...... and Devyn has done more than her share of these calls.

I don't look forward to seeing my phone bill next month. But it will likely be the least of my worries......

Anyhow....

The real reason I wanted to finally get on here is because I've finally taken the photos from the Rider game off of the camera.

There was a little storm threatening and we weren't sure if there would be rain or snow. A tremendous rainbow came out.

It's tough to tell from this view during half time. There was a regular season attendance record with more than 65,000 fans. Another quick note about the picture above - those lines of people on the field are 50 years of Eskimo Cheerleaders. There were teams from years past. One of the lines had the cheerleaders from the '60's. It looked walking into my grandmas place at supper time - 200 old ladies with poodle cuts.

Here's the happy couple early on.

I'm not so sure Dev's having as much fun as I was. haha - Really I think it was more the weather than anything. It was chilly, and I certainly wouldn't call Devyn the most devoted football fan. I pretty much begged her to come with me.

And this last pic will show you who won. There were SO many Roughrider fans! I think it would've been close to 50/50 actually. Lots of fun!

Part 3

This is a little den or office right off the kitchen. The backyard with a huge fire pit. May have to "remember, remember the 5th of November" and celebrate Guy Fawkes night in style in our new backyard.

And these next three images are pictures of a totally separate basement suite. I don't know if we'll look for a tenant right away, but it would sure help to bring in a little extra cash. Needs a little bit of work, but it's actually quite a nice one bedroom apartment really.

Second set of pics

Ahhhhh, I really wish blogger was a little more user-friendly. It's a royal pain in the ass to upload pics and organize them in any order.
Anyway...... Here's the ensuite bathroom.
A little peek at the main bathroom.

Here's the basement. I think they did a pretty nice job with the colour selection.

Another look at the basement. I know it's hard to visualize the layout, but I am sure you can get an idea.

And my personal favourite - the spiral staircase. Apparently the lady told Devyn there was s salesman that went through the neighbourhood in the '70's or '80's selling these particular staircases. There's quite a few houses on the street with these silly things.

The stairs are right in the front of the house as you walk in the front door. One of those unique little quirks that I think we'll grow to love in the place.

It actually works!!!!

Here's the place we are in the proceess of buying. Bungalow in St. Albert built 1970.
Here's the living room as you walk in the front door.
Little dining area off the kitchen.

The kitchen. Totally upgraded, with a crazy tap. Not sure if you can really see it.

Another angle of the kitchen.

This property is hereby SOLD

Well, I'd say it's as close to a done deal as you could imagine. I think I can safely declare me and Devyn home-owners.
Last Friday Dev and my dad went to look at a nice little bungalow in Braeside. They liked what they saw and I went to have a peek on Friday afternoon. We went ahead with an offer and the lady accepted.
So then we needed a home inspection which was completed on Monday. 4 hours later we still liked what we saw. Then the financing went through Tuesday and we released the conditions. This is where I saw the statement, "this property is hereby sold". So I think it's pretty safe to say this deal will go through and me and my beautiful wife will be moving into St. Albert on October 23rd, 2009.
I will look through the info I have laying around on the computer and see if I can't get some pics up on here. Yahoooooo!!!!!!!!!!

Drumheller Part Deux

This first shot is some kind of wild death pose. The thing dies and it's muscles or nerves cause it to be contorted in this way. I'm betting the person who uncovered this was pretty pleased.
Here I am being a little silly, but those are the jaws of a dinosaur. Yipes!

I loved the look of these things. I sometimes like doing jigsaw puzzles,and couldn't stop thinking about finding these bones laying in the dirt and piecing them together to come up with this. Amazing really.

I am not sure any sci-fi writer could dream up anything as scary as this one. Look at the skull on it!!!! I'm glad I wasn't around to see these dinos running around. We may not be at the top of the food chain if the dinosaurs were still kicking.

The museum had three tanks in this wall. One had a fish we still can see in our rivers called a Sturgeon. They have spines on them and I've often thought they looked somewhat pre-historic. Well these things were some kind of Mexican fish that had legs. Hahahah The name started with an "A" but I can't remember what it is. They are just hideous.

EFMF

Another Folk Festival is in the books, and as usual it was splendid. I never grow tired of looking at the beautiful Edmonton skyline from the hill. It's beautiful.
We don't get to see each other often enough, but we get lots of time together at the FF. Craig Metcalfe was in town from Toronto. He's seeking shelter under Dev's scarf. Jeff Stuart beside him.

Devyn was worried about a sunburn as usual, butt his time went to great lengths to avoid it.

We also had a great time with Carly. Laughing as always.

And here are the Hawaiian dudes, Hal and Uncle Garry.

The music was wonderful too, but I don't really like taking pics of the bands for some reason. Half the time I can't remember who I was watching. Some highlights were Sam Baker and Gurf Morlix. Tift Merrit, The Great Lakes Swimmers, Old Man Luedecke, Shane Nicholson, Alana Levandoski, Loudon Wainwright III and Danny Michel. Among others.